PhotoShelter Blog » Andrew Fingermanhttp://blog.photoshelter.com
Photo Industry News, Resources, and OpinionTue, 03 Mar 2015 22:03:41 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Meet Lattice: A New Photo Project from PhotoShelterhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/10/meet-lattice-a-new-photo-project-from-photoshelter/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/10/meet-lattice-a-new-photo-project-from-photoshelter/#commentsWed, 08 Oct 2014 20:52:39 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=37751Today, we’re launching the first phase of a special new project from our team here at PhotoShelter. It’s called Lattice. With Lattice, our mission is simple — to connect people with the photos they love and the creators behind those photos.

The background…

Over nearly a decade, we’ve cultivated a community of more than 80,000 professional photographers who rely on PhotoShelter to store, display, share and sell their work. Across this community, we now host 200 million images. We believe this to be the world’s largest pool of images captured by professional photographers.

But, looking out across the community and the incredible imagery uploaded to PhotoShelter every day, we still felt something was missing. We wanted to create a way to help our photographers better attract and engage a larger audience, and specifically, people who care about our photographers’ content. I’m talking about picture professionals working on projects, as well as photo consumers with a passion for images of very specific subject matters that can be found across our community.

Enter Lattice: a visually stunning way to discover and curate photography by PhotoShelter photographers. In one place, Lattice achieves a number of very important goals:

1) Lattice gives PhotoShelter a new way to gather and showcase our members’ amazing photography.

2) Lattice creates a destination where people who love photography can find, curate and buy powerful images to suit any theme, project or passion.

Lattice is a creative experience. It’s uniquely collaborative and super useful. It’s also a ton of fun.

How Lattice works…

With Lattice, visitors to PhotoShelter can find and save publicly searchable images from our community. We call this curating a Lattice board. In this first phase, curation will be by invitation only.

PhotoShelter photographers can then suggest additional images that may be a strong fit for any board. We call this contributing to the board’s stream. The curator can review the stream and decide to promote images from the stream to the board.

All the while, any Lattice visitor can follow boards they like to get regular alerts when new work is added. To me, this creates a perfect loop between the content consumer and our photographers. From a Lattice board, anyone may also directly visit each photographer’s website, contact the photographer, or purchase their photography.

To enjoy Lattice right now…

We’ll be rolling out Lattice in phases, starting with the release of boards and streams as a new way to showcase PhotoShelter members’ incredible imagery. Our staff and invited curators will be building new boards regularly. Check out the dozens of boards our team has created, and follow your favorites. PhotoShelter photographers may instantly begin adding images to streams too. If you’ve got the bug to curate a board, request an invitation here.

What’s coming next…

Starting now, we’ll be watching how visitors and photographers interact with the content, and gathering feedback. This will soon be joined by new, powerful search capabilities and more robust features, as well as opening up curation more broadly.

Building Lattice has been a thrill for our team. It’s a delight to unveil it today.

Andrew & the PhotoShelter Team

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2014/10/meet-lattice-a-new-photo-project-from-photoshelter/feed/17A Note On The liveBooks Acquisitionhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2013/07/a-note-on-the-livebooks-acquisition/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2013/07/a-note-on-the-livebooks-acquisition/#commentsWed, 10 Jul 2013 18:52:39 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=30414In the last few weeks, there’s been a lot of talk in the photography community about the state of portfolio website vendor liveBooks. Yesterday, photographer Vincent Laforet authored a blog post with his concerns, and shortly thereafter liveBooks announced it had been acquired by WeddingWire. While we can’t surmise exactly what it all means for liveBooks and their customers at this moment of transition, I do think it’s worth weighing on what it means for PhotoShelter. Our relationship with liveBooks has always been one of friendly competition. We’ve enjoyed a great relationship with the folks there, and many of our members also use liveBooks for their portfolio.

It’s that kind of healthy competition that helps push us to create the best possible product for professional photographers, and provide top-notch service to the photography community at large. It’s why we strive to differentiate ourselves from other portfolio website companies by offering a full suite of tools to help you run your business – from archiving your highest quality images, to giving you easy options to deliver them to clients, to selling them online, and more. It’s why we offer live customer service and it’s why we continue to invest in creating free content to help photographers build their businesses.

It’s also why we launched Beam, a forward-looking portfolio website platform that will let us release new features, update our current product offering and bring new innovations to our customer base at a more rapid pace than ever before. Yesterday, we released the public beta of Beam with four new, HTML5-based responsive website templates to build your online photography portfolio (you can take a look at our product overview video here). Beam enables PhotoShelter to provide photographers with both a gorgeous portfolio website and a powerful backend filled with photography business tools. Plus, you can change your design anytime, and there are no set-up fees.

If you’re a liveBooks user considering your options for a new portfolio website and you’re looking for great design with powerful marketing tools built-in, I’d like to invite you to try PhotoShelter for free, for 60 days.

In the meantime, we look forward to continuing to serve the professional photographer community. As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. We’d be grateful if you trusted us with your business.

Today, PhotoShelter is introducing something new to the photography community, and it’s called Beam. Beam is our brand-new platform for building a striking, cutting-edge photography portfolio website, fully integrated with PhotoShelter’s suite of powerful business tools.

This new platform is the culmination of over a year’s worth of work by our team and rounds of feedback from countless PhotoShelter members. And, its release into public beta today is really just the beginning.

When we initially started planning for Beam, we knew that our own websites needed an update and that we wanted to build a flexible platform for creating features other than the websites themselves. But we also took a look at the marketplace. The truth is, there really are a lot of portfolio website offerings out there. Still, none really offer the combination of back-end workflow tools and forward-thinking portfolio websites in one package.

We decided that the photo community deserved something better, and we set out with a lofty mission: to deliver the most engaging and compelling way for photographers to present their work online. As with any good mission, it keeps us on our toes and continuously striving to do better. Yet it starts with great design and great technology, and a commitment to helping photographers succeed as business owners – something we hope we’ve achieved with Beam.

Further, Beam is an API-based platform that positions us to keep pace with trends in portfolio websites and emerging web paradigms. The API provides “hooks” into your PhotoShelter hosted images and affords us the flexibility and agility to respond to the needs of our members by developing new features, template designs, 3rd party integrations and workflow tools more rapidly than ever.

Matching our portfolio websites to the industry-leading business and workflow tools that PhotoShelter provides was a big part of our goal in launching Beam. In fact, while these these new sites are visually attractive in a special way, we still feel that it’s the built-in tools behind the website – for archiving images, selling online, and delivering photos to clients — that will always make PhotoShelter distinct and provide our members with unique advantages vs. typical portfolio websites. Combining a stunning portfolio plus powerful tools built specifically for professional photographers is what gives us the ability to say that PhotoShelter is a true platform for helping you get business, do business, and keep business.

Some of the key traits you’ll find in Beam portfolio websites:

Responsive: The new sites are created using HTML5 and CSS3, which allow images to scale according to screen size (test it out by changing the size of your browser window). Plus, they look great on desktops, laptops, and tablets alike. Advanced techniques such as dynamic load optimization, pre-fetching, priority queuing and client device detection also optimize the responsive experience.

Credit: alexandratremaine.photoshelter.com

Connected: Beam provides seamless website integration with third-party tools used daily by photographers, including Instagram, Vimeo, and WordPress and Tumblr blogs. You can showcase these feeds directly on your website without linking out to external sites or putting in any day-to-day work on your end.

WordPress blog integration/Credit: keithbedford.photoshelter.com

Vimeo video integration/Credit: eduardoangel.photoshelter.com

Customizable: The new Site Builder lets you make quick changes to your site’s look and feel in real time – meaning you can make changes directly on your website and see the results immediately. Make edits to fonts, colors, logos, navigation items, featured galleries, and build an unlimited amount of custom pages. The websites are intuitive to build and require no extra design or coding experience.

Edit your site in real time/Credit: owyoung.photoshelter.com

Oh, and the photos look damn good: We’ve refined our image processing to yield the most accurate representation of your images possible, and have set the benchmark on the web for color fidelity, resolution, details, and freedom from artifacts. Our members are professionals of the highest caliber, so it’s critical that we’ve meet these quality requirements on the new Beam platform by delivering high res images for the latest HD and Retina devices.

Credit: gavingough.photoshelter.com

Starting today, Beam will be available to PhotoShelter members with Standard or Pro accounts (If you don’t have a PhotoShelter account, you can sign up for a 14-day free trial here). We’ll be offering weekly webinars to help introduce Beam’s new portfolio sites and answer your questions. Or, you can watch a video overview of the new sites, and learn how to build one for yourself.

Beam is a forward-looking step for PhotoShelter. It’s taken a lot of time and focus for our team, and I can promise that there is much more to come. We’ll continue making new templates and features available to our members in the coming months. As always, your feedback is a critical part of our product development process, so please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions.

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2013/07/introducing-beam-a-new-platform-for-cutting-edge-portfolio-websites/feed/28Announcing: PhotoShelter & White House Custom Colour Integrationhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2013/06/announcing-photoshelter-white-house-custom-colour-integration/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2013/06/announcing-photoshelter-white-house-custom-colour-integration/#commentsThu, 06 Jun 2013 12:00:47 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=29810Today we’re thrilled to announce the addition of White House Custom Colour (WHCC) to our suite of integrated print vendors. This integration means that PhotoShelter members can now auto-fulfill their custom print orders with WHCC through their websites, streamlining the buying process for both you and your clients.

With its rich history of providing quality prints, photo products, and top notch customer service to professional photographers, WHCC is an excellent match for the PhotoShelter community, and we’re excited to be once again expanding our auto-fulfillment options. WHCC joins top quality printers Adorama Pix, BWC, EZ Prints and Spectrum, now giving PhotoShelter members 5 printers to choose from. PhotoShelter members have asked for a partnership with this standout print lab for quite some time, and we’re really excited to deliver on that request.

What’s next?

This first phase of our integration with WHCC will offer prints in various sizes and finishes for PhotoShelter members to price and sell directly from their websites. And over the next few weeks, we’ll also be rolling out an even larger selection of WHCC products, from gallery wrap canvases to metal prints and more. PhotoShelter members who have their eye on specific WHCC products should feel free to send in a request anytime.

15% off the wholesale price!

To help you get started selling with WHCC, we’ve set up some nice incentives. For the next 30 days, PhotoShelter members will receive 15% off the wholesale price for WHCC products. Plus, you’ll be entered to win a package of products from WHCC worth up to $300!

Not a PhotoShelter member?

Sign up for a 30-day free trial using the promo code WHCC1306 and see what both PhotoShelter and WHCC have to offer. If you’re looking to sell, then be sure to take advantage of PhotoShelter’s built-in shopping cart and our integrated print services with WHCC.

You choose which prints and products to offer through your website, at what price, and collect the funds at the point of sale. WHCC integration with PhotoShelter enables you to impress clients with quality prints – sold directly from your PhotoShelter website. Learn more about selling with PhotoShelter and WHCC here.

This appears to be a big week for Yahoo! with their $1 billion Tumblr acquisition announcement followed by a number of changes to their Flickr service. Exciting stuff in the tech world. However, amid the Yahoo! hoopla, CEO Marissa Mayer managed to insult the entire professional photography community with her comments, being widely interpreted as “there’s no such thing as professional photographers” anymore.

Oops. Now, we’ve all been in a position where an off-the-cuff comment doesn’t come out as intended, fair enough. But this one continues to sit poorly with me. Here’s the actual quote, in context:

“…there’s no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there is no such thing really as professional photographers, when there’s everything is professional photographers [sic]. Certainly there is varying levels of skills, but we didn’t want to have a Flickr Pro anymore, we wanted everyone to have professional quality photos, space, and sharing.”

OK, so we are all now “photographers” thanks to the fact that a camera is always with us. Sure, I buy that. I’ve taken more than a handful of good photos with help from my inexpensive DSLR and a few good lenses. And, I’m as guilty as everyone else when it comes to Instagramming my kids and my dinner (only the stuff I cook, mind you). We can all apply lovely filters and share our images via websites, social networks, contests, and even on any number of corporate “communities” where brands may showcase user generated photos. But let’s be very clear…NONE of these tools makes us anything close to “professional” and the role of the real professional photographer is very much alive and in demand.

I’ve had the good fortune of surrounding myself with professional photographers for several years. And from them, I’ve learned that there are more than a handful of traits that define a professional photographer. So, for Marissa Mayer and anyone else who may feel that there’s “no such thing” as a professional photographer anymore, I submit the following list.

13 Traits That Make a Photographer “Professional”

A professional photographer…

Approaches a project in a manner that shows respect for both the subject and the client’s goal.

Works with a client to achieve that goal under specific budget constraints.

Delivers the end result, as agreed upon, on time and in a manner that shows the client’s most critical needs are understood.

Finds ways to make a client’s life easier from the beginning of a project to the end, including saving them time and making them look like a hero.

Is prepared to face any problem with a creative solution, from the most dire to the off-the-wall.

Takes criticism and adjusts (quickly) in order to get the job done.

Can completely pivot among all kinds of changing circumstances.

Presents, negotiates, agrees, executes, invoices, and follows up with consistency and personal pride.

Knows how to pitch and market oneself with accuracy so the promised service is what’s delivered.

Researches the subject of a story and contributes insights and vision that make the end result better.

Builds rapport with a subject in a way that gains unique access, makes them more comfortable, or exposes their personality.

And to the final one (#13) I’ll add – there’s nobody I’ve met on this planet who can tell stories like a professional photographer can. Period.

Filters, “likes”, and terabytes of storage don’t make any of us any more “professional”. Being a professional is about how photographers conduct themselves while carrying out their projects and serving their clients. These are skills that are learned and honed, and those who excel at it deserve our respect.

Please don’t hesitate to add to this list, I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few.

We’ve been cooking up something really exciting here at PhotoShelter, and today, the project takes a big step forward. We’re kicking off the private Beta release for our new platform for portfolio websites.

For the past few months, we’ve been testing this new platform – and our initial portfolio designs – with a small group of photographers, and now we’re opening it up to a larger population.

Our new designs are a pretty radical change from our current website options. They are modern and bold, and tap into emerging user interface paradigms to give you more powerful and engaging ways to showcase your work. They incorporate responsive design and HTML5 so they’ll optimize for various screen sizes and devices, including tablets, and give you a range of customization options you’ve never had before with PhotoShelter, like much greater control over fonts, colors, and custom pages. Making changes and updates is super easy and intended to save you time with a “live edit” tool – i.e. the ability to see your edits as you make them and save/push live what you like, as you go along.

Example of one of the new portfolio websites/robinmoore.photoshelter.com

The All Galleries page/robinmoore.photoshelter.com

An example of a second new template/www.inger.net

The new portfolio sites include Vimeo integration/www.inger.net

Going beyond the advanced design, the big differentiator for our portfolio websites will be the way they integrate with the rest of the tools packed inside each PhotoShelter account. Nowhere else will you be able to combine high-end portfolio designs with the power of your entire image archive in one seamless, elegant experience for your clients and prospects, including your image sales, client proofing, image delivery, and downloads.

But that’s not all. In fact, it’s really just the starting point. The portfolio sites sit atop a new API-based platform that will allow us to be agile and stay on top of the latest advancements in technology and design – and make it available to you. So, in essence, you continue to store and manage your photos in the same way on PhotoShelter, and we will continuously add new features and design templates more rapidly than we’ve ever done before. Personally, I’m excited about the flexibility that this new platform will give us to expand what you can do with your photos online in entirely new and imaginative ways.

So what’s next?

Everything we do supports our mission to help photographers succeed as business owners. In order to do that, we need to take advantage of the latest technology. And we need to provide a modern website experience that meets your audience’s expectations. Rather – an experience that blows away your audience. This new platform is our first step in that direction.

It’s a big, forward-looking step for PhotoShelter. It’s taken a lot of time and focus for our team, and I’m proud of how far we’ve come. I can promise there is much more to come – a public Beta will soon follow this next private phase.

As always, user feedback is a critical part of our product development process. So, we invite you to sign up for the Beta if you’re interested in being an early tester and are willing to tell us what you think (the good, bad and ugly). We’ll be bringing on testers in waves over the next 6-8 weeks to help us further refine the templates we’ve built thus far and gather ideas for upcoming designs. In the meantime, you can find answers to more detailed questions on the whole process here.

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2013/05/introducing-photoshelters-new-platform-for-your-portfolio-website/feed/23On the Job: Shooting Arizona Cardinals Footballhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/12/shooting-arizona-cardinals-football/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/12/shooting-arizona-cardinals-football/#commentsSun, 09 Dec 2012 09:33:19 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=26299Gene Lower is the team photographer for the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals. Gene turned 39 last Sunday, and he chose (voluntarily) to spend his special day with me — a self titled nutjob football fan, and someone he’s never met in person before. Ok, so Gene needed to be in New Jersey that day for work, because his Cardinals were in town playing the New York Jets. But when the 2012 NFL schedule was released, Gene reached out and invited me to assist him for the day, on the sidelines, for Sunday’s game. (Gene also owns or manages no less than *eight* different PhotoShelter accounts, including an account he has for the Cardinals photos, his personal account, and multiple accounts that he manages for individual athletes’ private photos as well as corporations, which is a service Gene provides on the side.)

I jumped at the chance to join Gene for two big reasons. 1) Since my promotion to CEO of PhotoShelter earlier this year, I’ve tried to take every possible opportunity to dig deep into how our members operate their photo businesses, both on and off our platform. This would be amazing on-the-job exposure to see how Gene gets it done. 2) Having attended more than 100 NFL games throughout my lifetime, I’d never once had the chance to be on the sidelines. As adults, I think we can all admit that there are less and less things that make us ridiculously giddy with excitement anymore. So this was one of those rare, “we’re going to Disneyworld” type moments. I knew that getting up close and personal on the field for a real NFL game would be an immense treat, and having learned that I was a big football fan, Gene extended the invitation.

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

Gene has been shooting for the Cardinals for over 12 years and there’s a good chance you’d recognize many of his best images, but none more than this iconic photo of Pat Tillman, the standout Cardinals safety who became a US Army Ranger following the 9/11 attacks, and was sadly killed in action. The Cardinals actually immortalized Pat by making a statue from this photo, which now stands outside their stadium in Phoenix.

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

Now Gene’s invite wasn’t simply “come hang out with me while I work.” He was looking for a grip to be at his side for the away game. His instructions were: “Wear comfortable shoes because we’ll be moving the whole game, and you’ll probably be carrying some equipment, calling out plays in my ear, and writing down codes throughout the game.” So, I promised myself not to get too starry eyed, play it cool, and try to make Gene’s day a little easier.

I arrived at MetLife Stadium two hours before gametime, picked up my media credentials (Yes, it did feel super cool to say “I’m with the Arizona Cardinals” as I asked for my pass.) And then I picked up my NFL “working vest.” While the media photographers were given beige vests, the visiting team photographers we were given fluorescent green ones to identify that we had a bit more access to the team in key locations on the field. You couldn’t miss us.

It turns out, gear-wise, Gene travels pretty light for away games. He had a Canon 5D Mark II with his 400 mm f/2.8 lens, which is pretty standard for shooting the action of a football game from the sidelines. In addition, he had his Canon 1D Mark II with a fixed 28 mm f/1.8 short lens for capturing individual player features and stories as they unfolded up close, like players praying before the game, emotional high fives and dancing players after big plays, and other drama that played out off the field. The short lens was also useful for capturing game details like equipment (i.e. balls and helmets) that could later be used in marketing materials and as stock.

I deliberately left my own camera at home, because as the assistant, I didn’t want my own gear to interfere with Gene’s job. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity to snap a few iPhone pics for Instagram before the action started.

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

During pre-game warmups, Gene captured a few shots of players getting ready for the game, and it was a great chance for me to get to know him better and work out my own rookie jitters. I allowed myself a few minutes to appreciate the sheer size of these guys on the field. Even the quarterbacks are really big dudes. And then I started riddling Gene with questions. The first “client” in line for Gene’s game photos is the Cardinals team website. The website is updated throughout the game with fresh photos. As such, Gene must review his images at every break in the action and be prepared to hand his memory card off to a runner from the team. I helped by keeping notes – writing down the file number and player featured in the best shots. This helped the web team zero in on the right images to post quickly online. By halftime, Gene would have highlighted about 20 to 30 images ready to go online. Beyond this immediate need, Gene must be thinking about upwards of 50 different types of usages for his images following the game — from programs and other souvenirs, to Cardinals marketing, to stadium signage and environmental decor. Following the game, Gene will do a full edit via Photoshop on the plane ride home, and he then places the selects on the team’s PhotoShelter account in a new gallery, where all of the various Cardinals departments who need access to the images have permission to download the high res originals.

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

The game moves really quickly – we would shift mostly from the endzone to the 20 yard line on one end of the field, then when the ball changed hands we’d quickly move to the 20 yard line and end zone on the opposite end. Watching Gene work, the number one talent that was obvious was his knack for anticipation. It’s the same reason NFL players and coaches watch film while preparing for a game — knowing the players, their habits, and knowing the game *incredibly* well enabled Gene to position himself properly and key in on individual players before the action unfolded. With the 400 mm lens, you’re pretty much committing to a tight shot of a specific player or expecting a play to unfold in a certain way, because it’s very hard to also keep track of what’s happening outside your field of view and shift quickly to elsewhere on the field. That’s another spot where I was able to help a bit — Gene asked me to continuously call out the play to alert him to shift his focus elsewhere. For instance, if Gene was focused in on, say, the Cardinals star wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and the pass went to the opposite side of the field, calling it out would help Gene pivot in an attempt to capture the action.

I was very interested in how Gene approaches the game and how his perspective as the official team photographer varies compared to the editorial sports photographers I’ve spoken with in the past. It turns out, there are a bunch of very real differences. Because he travels with the team, Gene has developed close relationships with many of the players. They know when he’s around and clearly they like to entertain for the camera. He also gets special access, like being the only photographer permitted inside the team’s pregame huddle.

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

Another key difference was Gene’s chosen positions. For example, on a goal line play when the Jets were threatening to score, all the editorial shooters were clumped together near the endzone. Rather, Gene was in position on the opposite side of the play, in hopes of capturing a brilliant defensive stand by the Cardinals – the team certainly has no use for images of opponents scoring touchdowns. Also, for Gene, there really wasn’t any break in the action. Even when plays would end, Gene would frequently move back and forth from the sideline to the bench, equally as interested in the off-field interactions and antics. He was also deliberately mindful of other in-game storylines, like capturing photos of the Cardinals brand-new center starting his first game for the team.

Now, the game itself wasn’t exactly a barn burner — the final score was 7-6 in favor of the Jets and both teams suffered from less-than-stellar quarterback play. The crowd was small and relatively quiet too, many having given up on the hometown Jets. But despite this lack of intense action, Gene was able to produce some outstanding images showing the emotion of the day – from the pregame hope, to celebrations of big plays, to the disappointment with the outcome.

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

Photo by Gene Lower, Slingshot Photo

And if you look carefully, no matter what the score was, you can see in my eyes the unmistakable giddiness of a little kid on the sidelines of an NFL game for the very first time. And for this I’m especially grateful for the chance to have spent the day watching my new friend Gene Lower do his job.

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/12/shooting-arizona-cardinals-football/feed/2My New Definition of Luckyhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/11/my-new-definition-of-lucky/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/11/my-new-definition-of-lucky/#commentsFri, 02 Nov 2012 10:29:31 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=25591Every once in a while, life gives you a little jolt, sending you reminders not to take certain everyday things for granted. This week was one of those moments. Tuesday morning at 6AM – the morning after Hurricane Sandy ravaged much of the New York/New Jersey area – I have never in my life been so grateful for the arrival of daylight.

Of course, I was already up waiting for it, having spent the entire night peering out the window of my New Jersey home, watching enormous old trees bend and fall all around us, listening to wind and debris batter my home, and trying desperately to squeeze out text messages to the other PhotoShelter managers across a damaged AT&T communications network, all the while terrified for the minute-by-minute safety of my family. The night sky was faintly illuminated in each direction by the blue-green light of electrical transformers exploding with regularity as trees brought down more wires.

10PM Monday. With no power since late Monday afternoon, we huddled in our bedroom listening to an old portable radio, our only reliable link to the outside world, getting updates on the worsening situation in New York and up and down the Jersey shore. We’d tired the kids out letting them play with glow sticks and flashlights until they finally fell asleep. We were being overly careful to manage their perception of the storm, after they were traumatized only a year ago when Hurricane Irene filled our neighborhood with water and destroyed so many of their toys and 1/3 of our home. This time, we were “prepared,” and had moved everything – seriously, everything – upstairs to avoid losing property in the event of another flood.

The two last text messages I received were first from my neighbor Steve:

“Huge tree next door just fell, your neighbor’s car is totaled.”

Then, from Jeffrey Arnold, PhotoShelter’s head of network operations:

“Site’s down, power issue at NY data center. Investigating.”

I was able to tweet for about 30 minutes regarding the site issues, then with my cell signal deteriorating, I was able to ask Caroline, our product manager on the West Coast, to take over member communications. And then I was cut off…no more data access on my mobile.

2AM. Silence. To calm my own nerves, I sat with a flashlight reading the instruction manual to the portable generator we’d just bought (and eating doughnuts). “You will be killed or seriously hurt if you don’t follow these instructions.” I laughed – just hoping for the opportunity to use it – hoping that the power outage would be our most significant problem. I paced through my house waving my phone in the air, hoping for more than one bar to magically appear. I stared intermittently at the phone and out a repeating cycle of different windows. It felt like the biggest, most threatening trees were mocking me as they danced and waved. I considered and calculated which direction they’d ultimately fall. All the while, I was comforted and reassured by the notion that between Jeffrey and Caroline, the site issues would be quickly resolved and effectively communicated to our members. Despite wanting desperately to know that the situation was in fact remedied, all I could do was wait out the storm.

5AM. The rain stopped. The winds died down. Still no apparent damage as far as I could tell from inside – a huge relief. Still no water had flooded into the house – a massive relief. Still total darkness outside. I’m up everyday at 5am normally, but Tuesday morning it was a different kind of darkness. The kind that’s scary because you’re not sure if what’s familiar will still be out there or not.

6AM. Daylight came. I stepped outside just as one or two other neighbors did too. I was happy to see their tired, worry-worn faces. Massive trees were down everywhere. Multiple houses and cars were hit badly on each side. Lightposts and telephone poles were snapped like twigs, and both outlets to our street were fully blocked. I looked back at my house and thought, “We’re OK.” We got lucky. Somehow the damage and pain decided to avoid us. We got lucky that when my kids woke up, their biggest challenge was no lights and no hot breakfast. They’re saying we’ll be without regular power for two weeks and it will be very hard to find gas for the generator. But still, we got really, really lucky.

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

Photo by Andrew Fingerman

12PM. Still locked in by fallen trees and expecting them to be there for a while, I walked far enough away to catch a second bar on my iPhone, and the texts started rolling in. Jeffrey, from the middle of the night: “Site’s back up. Problem was the backup generator at the data center.” Caroline: “Lots of people wishing us well on Twitter and the member forums.” We’re OK. Another massive relief.

I remained without significant web/text/phone access through Wednesday. All the while, the PhotoShelter team mobilized around our crisis prep plan. They made sure each other were well accounted for, and even opened up their homes to team members left without power or drenched apartments. Everyone on their own initiative has been working from home or wherever they sought refuge and power. They’ve creatively assembled a customer support system that’s worked really well. And despite a brief interruption amid a catastrophic storm, and lacking a homebase due to the ongoing power outage in our office, they’ve managed to maintain an unexpected level of normalcy. They’re not simply making do in the wake of the storm, but pushing forward on their regular projects. They’ve done so with very little direction and the personal pride and desire to make our product better that they bring to our office everyday, and I am so proud of them. I’m so lucky to work with them.

And on Thursday I finally got a peek at the messages of encouragement and support from our members, some equally impacted by the storm and some from half a world away. I saw messages from wedding, nature, and sports photographers who we’ve come to call friends over the years, and some from photojournalists who put themselves in the way of a greater danger than we’ll ever comprehend. These messages were heartfelt, compassionate and truly moving. I can’t possibly express enough gratitude for your support and loyalty and understanding when many of us have been displaced, devastated, and shaken up by this event. It gave me a chance to reflect on our lasting partnership. Your messages gave us a very real boost when many of us really needed it – and for that I feel incredibly lucky, too.

By most accounts, we’ll have power back in the office this weekend. And on Monday we’ll start a new week, fresh. We’ll do so with a new vigor and an even deeper commitment than ever before to help support your pro photography business. Thank you for making us feel so lucky.

]]>http://blog.photoshelter.com/2012/11/my-new-definition-of-lucky/feed/3Cyber Monday Special: SEO Coaching Sessionhttp://blog.photoshelter.com/2011/11/cyber-monday-special-seo-coaching-session/
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2011/11/cyber-monday-special-seo-coaching-session/#commentsMon, 28 Nov 2011 15:46:48 +0000http://blog.photoshelter.com/?p=16375The folks who plan shopping holidays are a really smart bunch. They’ve made today the official day everyone in the world goes online looking for holiday specials and discounts, successfully extending the first holiday shopping “weekend.” Smart move #1. Then they co-opted the term “cyber,” successfully rescuing it from the killer robots featured in 1980’s sci-fi movies. Smart move #2. Our emotions are high, we’re looking for deals, and we’d be remiss if we stood on the sidelines watching everyone else have their fun with cyber madness.

Today we’re featuring a one-of-a-kind, highly limited offer to join PhotoShelter. Maybe you’re considering stepping up to a completely new photography website, or maybe you just know you can generate more business with better SEO (search engine optimization, aka. how you tweak your website to attract more traffic from search engines). If so, today would be a smart day to act. We’re giving away half-hour personal SEO coaching sessions plus 30 days of free PhotoShelter to the first 50 photographers who sign up with the promo code CYBERMONDAY.

Each 30 minute SEO coaching session includes:

One-on-one advice from a PhotoShelter SEO expert

How to create your keyword hit list

Personalized link building strategies

How to use PhotoShelter to improve your SEO and more

Digital Photo Pro magazine has said this: “PhotoShelter’s advanced features and SEO settings are the best we’ve found.” And that’s an honor we don’t take lightly. We’ve packed PhotoShelter with tools and resources to help improve the way that search engines find your images. These include:

You can learn more about the many ways PhotoShelter helps you display your photos and market yourself in our product tour. Get in on the Cyber Monday fun and make a smart choice for your photography business today. Here’s the signup link again.

This offer is limited to the first 50 photographers who join PhotoShelter today using the CYBERMONDAY promo code, and the offer closes at 11:59 PM ET today. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after the offer closes with details on scheduling your coaching session.

And, if you’re offering a Cyber Monday promotion of your own for your photography business, let us know so we can share it with the community too.

If you’re looking at the calendar and wondering where 2011 went, you’re not alone. We’re [already] headed into the final quarter of the year, so it’s a smart time to check in with how you’re doing vs. your original photography business plan. And if you want to finish the year strong, you may want to make some strategic decisions about how to spend your time and marketing resources.

Cut to our latest free resource, the 2012 Photo Business Plan Workbook. This 9-chapter workbook is designed to provide you with key strategies, concrete examples, and a list of comprehensive resources to help you think critically about your photo business.

In addition, here are 10 tips for smart moves you should be thinking about now. Regardless of how your business has performed thus far, you can decide to make success happen now or just watch the rest of the year take its course.

1. Have a cash flow plan.

How have you fared thus far in 2011? If your original plan for income and expenses went out the door months ago, its never too late to hold your ground and get back to the disciplined approach to managing your cash. What are your remaining expenses for 2011 and early 2012? Will your existing bookings cover these obligations and support your lifestyle? If not, how many additional gigs must you book to ensure you’re not creating a unmanageable debt situation to maintain necessary spending? At least three levers can impact cash flow – increasing prices, more aggressive or innovative marketing to bring in new clients, or slashing/delaying those expenses. Have a look at The Tax Ninja, Matt Whatley’s recommendations for smart equipment spending.

2. Review your website analytics.

This is one of those “I should really do this more often” tasks. But if you want to make smart decisions about your website and marketing, its critical to have a tool like Google Analytics installed and review the data regularly. To keep from getting bogged down, review a few key points and think about how they can impact your business. For example, Traffic Sources can be insightful data. Are the sources sending traffic to your site proportional to the effort you put in to cultivate those sources? If you have conversion tracking enabled, which are the best performing sources (that result in sales or inquiries) and can you spend more time or money cultivating these? Another helpful are is Content. What is the top content on your site in terms of visits and time on site? If there are any pleasant surprises, you should consider using this content more prominently on your site or marketing. Likewise, you can consider some end-of-year content tests to determine how visitors get engaged by specific new content on your site. (Your website software should support easy changes that enable you to be responsive to what you learn about visitor behavior.)

3. Tweak your SEO.

Are you maximizing opportunities to attract new clients using Google search? By now we assume you already have a keyword hitlist – an understanding of the keyword searches you want to appear on page 1 of search results for. (If you don’t have a keyword hitlist – see our guide to search engine optimization for photographers.) Use analytics to determine how your target keywords have performed over the year, both in terms of traffic and conversions (eg. photo sales, newsletter signups). Consider if you need to alter your keyword hitlist or work harder on your SEO to drive more traffic to your site. (PhotoShelter website owners – you should re-run the SEO Grader in your account to get customized recommendations for improvement.)

4. Test new pricing.

This is the part where people get awkward and shy – but here’s the reality: if you’re providing outstanding service to a client, they’ll respect you for being upfront with your needs. This is a business discussion – nothing personal. “My rates are increasing as of January.” You’ll never know the client’s threshold to pay more if you don’t test. The same can be true with print sales. You can even use the impending price increase to encourage clients to lock in work at the old rates. If you’re skittish about this, check out what Marketing Mentor Ilise Benun told us about talking budget with clients.

5. Run a promotion.

Everyone loves a good holiday discount. The best part about offering a promotion is that it gives you “new news” – something substantial to communicate to your prospects and get yourself back on their radar. (PhotoShelter members – you can set up discount coupons and promo codes, as well as promotional image packages, right inside your account.)

6. Think seasonality.

While you’re getting ready to fill yourself up with holiday fare, your clients are already a few miles down the road. What are they thinking about right now? It will vary by industry and photo specialty. The holidays give you a great reason to go back to portrait and event clients and remind them of photos they can buy for themselves and loved ones. Meanwhile, your commercial clients are probably already planning spring campaigns.

7. Build your prospect list.

If your prospect list is crusty and old, or nonexistent, you should make it a priority to refresh this effort. You can do this organically with intensive research and a smart content marketing strategy that attracts potential clients to sign up for your newsletter. (For tips on building your content marketing strategy, checkout The Freelancer’s Online Marketing Blueprint.) Alternatively, you can work with a service like Agency Access to build a list that is highly relevant to your specialty.

8. Consider year end purchases to lower taxes.

US based businesses (and likely other nations too) typically evaluate upcoming expenses at the end of the year and make them in December. Why? If you have the budget flexibility, these expenses help offset profits in your tax return, and can save you money (meaning, your profits are lower so you pay the taxman less). The Tax Ninja Matt Whatley tells us that that, on average, photographers spend $10,000-$15,000 in equipment expenses every 2 years, and it’s all tax deductible in the first year. This can create a nice savings on your taxes, assuming you have enough income to offset the purchases. Making business purchases isn’t the only smart tax move that should be on your mind – have a look at Matt’s 7 Common Tax Mistakes Made By Photographers.

9. Don’t forget your holiday cards – a smart marketing tool.

Holiday cards are another great way to get back on the radar of old clients, and break through to new prospects. We’ve been told that many buyers, like Travel + Leisure’s Whitney Lawson, look forward to receiving new and creative holiday cards which she keeps just like other standout photographer promotions.

10. Get some feedback.

As you’re thinking about ways to fine tune your business, don’t do it in a vacuum. Contact the clients and partners you’ve worked with throughout the year and ask for direct input. How did our collaboration work out for you? What could have made it more successful? This will not only give you important constructive tips to improve the way you operate, but it demonstrates to your clients that you’re a professional who cares about their needs and your own continuous improvement. If you’re not comfortable with face-to-face feedback, try a survey tool like SurveyMonkey.

Now go get planning!

What are you doing to make sure you wrap up 2011 strong and start 2012 with a bang? Tell us in the comments.